


Death's Accord (part 1)

by Elliephant1018



Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst, Betrayal, Body Horror, Childhood Trauma, Deal with a Devil, Death, Dreams and Nightmares, Gen, Hallucinations, Horror, Isolation, Mental Instability, Murder, Psychological Horror, Psychological Trauma, Rejection, Rituals, Small Towns, Stalking, Suspense, Talking To Dead People, Thriller, Trauma, Witchcraft
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-04
Updated: 2019-09-04
Packaged: 2020-10-06 22:19:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20514404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elliephant1018/pseuds/Elliephant1018
Summary: Anna Caplan was raised the only daughter of the town mortician. The other children, and some of the adults, find there is something off about her and subsequently avoid and bully her. It all culminates from the night Anna first spoke to one of the dead that found their way under her father's scrutinizing knife, the night when she learned that she was special.





	Death's Accord (part 1)

**Author's Note:**

> This started as a short story and I expected to be done with it around 5,000 words. I didn't have a lot to go on and figured I could wrap things up real quick, but the story just kept going on and on so I kept going with it. 40,000 words later I've finally finished. This is not the best work I've ever done, I see it mostly as practice, but I think some people may find it interesting if not entertaining. So enjoy part 1 of Anna's bizarre story.  
-Ellie

1

Raised as the only daughter of the town mortician, Anna was used to Death. Death was the swishing of her father's latex apron and the cold radiating from the basement, but Death was also the Caplan family's income and so it didn't frighten Anna.  
It was Death's messengers which frightened her. She was seven the first time she met one of these lingering souls; the woman had been forty-three, brunette.  
“A secretary or a librarian or some shit like that.” she could remember her father saying, as he gestured towards the lifeless bulk laying on his “Examination table,” as he so critically called it. Anna remembered imagining the various rises and falls of the human body beneath the pale silken sheet as snowy mountains, far away and pleasant before being pulled back to reality and her father's side.  
Her father began his tale of how the woman had died, seeing as a man gets lonely surrounded by corpses all day, it's only natural that he relish the chance to converse, even if the topic was Death and even if the audience was his now seven year old daughter. She had shown vague disgust at the corpses initially but nothing more than that. While mildly perturbed, Craig Caplan never thought too much about what the lasting effect of exposure to corpses and mutilated bodies would be on the fragile mind of his daughter, but he didn’t really care anyway.  
“She was jumped, er mugged.” Craig placed a tool on the examination table, it looked sharp, “Apparently she was on her way home from the bank. Someone must've followed her from the bank after she had picked up some dough. But I don't think this was really about the money, if you do something like this to a person it had better be for a better reason than just money.” He chuckled, “What do I know, I'm no detective. This job makes you wonder though, that's for sure.”  
While he was speaking, Anna watched her father's hand float toward the body, reaching towards the silk sheet that lay over the gray corpse.  
“It was in that park up the hill, not far from the duck pond actually,” he said, raising his eyebrows, “where her body was discovered.” He listed off her symptoms as though they were written on a shopping list; “Nineteen total stab wounds, lacerations across her back, a collapsed eye socket from a heavy blow, and one deflated tit to pour salt in the wound.” The white silk sheet was ripped off the body with a tremendous Whoosh!, revealing the mutilated and once beautiful woman.  
Anna's father never told her the names of the victims who occasionally took up residence in her home, he says he doesn't want her to form attachments, which Anna thought was a little bit silly given the circumstances. She was young, yes, but she was not stupid.  
The librarian's hair was a mess and a fistful was missing from the back of her head. Her right eye was a sunken pit, purple and green with bruises, now permanently sealed shut, unlike her left eye which remained opened and frozen in terror. Bruises on her neck, breasts, and inner thighs were ripening to a soft mauve. One of her breasts had not deflated, as her father said, but the stab wound was still visible all the way into the exposed silicon implant. Eighteen other stab wounds, though they seemed countless to Anna at the time, were positioned over the rest of her torso like little exclamation marks of crimson.  
Craig wondered if he had gone too far showing her this one. “It's not a pretty sight, and the back is even worse in my opinion, looks like she was whipped...” her father trailed off, “but I'll spare you that at least.” he looked apprehensively towards his daughter, “You okay sugarplum?”  
“Yes daddy.” She replied, eyes wide and glued to the corpse that lay in front of her.  
Somewhere, deep within the little girl's psyche, something had stirred, slowly shambling to life, beating rhythmically against the walls encasing it. Crack! Small, yet noticeable, a crack zigzagged through her mind, conniving new perceptions and realities of the world she is coming to know, making its irrevocable mark on her. Her life would never be the same.  
The rest of her father's work on the woman was lost from memory.  
That night, Craig had made grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup for them both, the sight of the soup reminded Anna of blood but that didn't stop her, she ate and found herself famished. She had seconds. And thirds.  
When she had finished eating, Anna crawled her way up the stairs to her room, head still ablaze with images of mutilation and death.  
When Craig heard the door to her room shut, he took out his whiskey.  
It wasn't easy staying dry all day while she watched him work, especially with that last body. That was the first time he had ever shown her a murder victim. All the ones before had been the elderly. It began when their next door neighbor had passed, she was a sad old woman but never failed to give Anna a warm smile and a piece of candy every time she and her father walked past. He had told Anna whom he was working on and Anna decided to help him.  
Had he gone too far this time? He had no idea where the impulse to show her this victim came from, but for some reason it seemed to be something he had to do. She seemed okay, maybe even a little fascinated. Is that a good thing though? He poured a shot and downed it. “I'm doin' alright without ya Lana but I don't miss you any less.” He said to the dark and silent apartment.

On the brink of sleep, Anna heard a whisper coming from her closet.  
“Girl.” The voice hissed pleasantly.  
Anna's opened her eyes, surely that had just been a whisper of a dream that she almost slipped into, there wasn't anyone here with her.  
Was there?  
She waited, heart thumping in her ears. Nothing, Just a dream.  
“No dreams, not yet. Come to me.” the voice said.  
Anna sat up and stared at the tall door across the room from her bed, she was not scared that there was someone in her closet but she was confused as to how they had got there in the first place. Had she heard that voice somewhere before?  
She crossed the room and stood before the closet, an irrational thought sped its way through Anna's mind: could it be her mother was speaking to her? She had heard stories where people talked to ghosts all the time, maybe her mother's ghost had found her way back to her!  
“Guess again.” the voice was louder now and unmistakably behind the door. Anna reached for the door knob and pulled the door open. There were clothes hanging, shoes on the ground, discarded toys in boxes, books in the corner, and a dark haired girl staring back at Anna. The mirror had been her mother's but her dad decided that she should have it now. It made her sad to look at, so she put it in the closet.  
'No,' Anna thought, 'That's not my mom.' and with sudden unknown surety added, 'You're the woman that got stabbed all those times.'  
Anna's reflection smirked , “What a clever girl you are! And only the age of,” a brief pause, “seven. How delightful. I am not this woman, I am merely using her fleeting life as a vessel.”  
“Who are you then?” Anna whispered, seeing her reflection move independently made Anna start to feel dizzy.  
'I am simply a messenger, passing along the word of Death.'  
Anna didn't know what to say or think. Her grasp on the world was still growing, every day she was learning new things, but she was having a hard time comprehending what was happening right now, or was it all in her head?  
Was she going crazy? The image of a man from the adult show her dad had been watching earlier that week popped into her head: completely bald, bound by a straightjacket, his mouth open and frothing, his tongue flicking from side to side as he whipped his head back and forth, back and forth. And his eyes. Blue, so bright they appeared to glow in the dark. She didn't think she was crazy... she didn't think she was that.  
The Messenger, wearing Anna's reflection and using the librarian's voice, spoke, “All of this is real child. You are not this.” the woman rebounded the image of the insane man back into the forefront of Anna's mind. It was an odd sensation to have another root around in her mind and by the time the image had cleared, her brain felt bruised. Her head began to ache.  
“This is very real, as are the consequences for not listening to me.” The Messenger smiled. “You are listening to me, aren't you?”  
Anna nodded.  
“Good!” She crooned, “You see, I'm here because your mother was a very bad girl back in the day, I first spoke to her in a similar fashion to this actually, funny how things get passed down the line.” Her reflection grinned sickeningly.  
“What do you mean? What did she do?”  
In a brief moment of clarity Anna decides that she is dreaming, she has to be right?  
The Messenger sighed and shifted Anna's reflection, causing another wave of nausea to rise through Anna's stomach to her throbbing head. “I thought we were past this. No dream, real consequences. Say it.”  
“Real consernquences.” Anna said.  
“Close enough. All you humans seem to have the attention span of a roach so I'll make this quick; your mom set certain things in motion but she died before she was supposed to and now her debt falls on you”  
Anna's mouth is incredibly dry and her voice cracks, “Why me? Why tell me this now?”  
“You've recently proven yourself to be... mature enough to comprehend your task. There is no choice in this, well actually there was a choice, too bad your mom already made it for you.” Her own reflection laughed sickeningly and of its own accord, “This is something that simply must happen, 'real consernquences' remember?”  
“What do you want from me?”  
“Nothing. Not until the time comes, at which point you will be told.”  
“W-what if I can't do what you want me to do? Why can't you tell me everything now?”  
“It's different for everybody.” She grinned and winked at Anna, there was a gust of wind, the closet door slammed shut and hit her nose, causing it to bleed. Anna fell back, tears already blurring her vision, she blinked the tears away and they rolled down her cheeks. Blood dripped from her nose and stained her purple pajamas, her favorite purple pajamas.  
Anna began to sob.  
Craig Caplan was asleep at the kitchen table after drinking most of his “weekly allowance” which usually consisted of three bottles but was apt to change depending on, well, life. Anna's cry rose from her room and Craig awoke slowly When he finally registers his daughter’s cries he doesn’t run for the stairs, he doesn't even lift his head at first, he only opens his eyes and thinks, 'What now.' It was bad enough that he had to see his Lana in Anna's eyes every day but now she couldn't even give him his nights anymore?  
He rose unsteadily and climbed the stairs to her room.  
Anna was lying on the ground, holding her hands to her face and sobbing, a few drops of blood had soaked into the carpet and her brand new pajamas, 'Fucking great.'' He hoped that he had kept the receipt, but he knew that he didn't.  
Craig helped her to her feet and escorted her to the bathroom.  
“Take those off and give em to me.” Craig said, gesturing to her pajamas.  
Anna hesitated for a moment and then does what she is told.  
“Clean yourself up, I'll be right back.” He stumbled his way to the laundry room while Anna stared at her reflection, waiting for it to move again, but it didn’t do anything aside from stare back. Her nose must have broken because the tip was now noticeably inclined. She looked like a pig. This thought caused her to cry once more. After washing away all the blood and stuffing her nose with enough one-ply toilet paper, she returned to her room without her pajamas, 'he probably fell asleep somewhere again.' she thought and crawled into her bed, exhausted.  
“It's different for everybody.” The phrase bounced around in her skull, making her feel as though she would explode, but she was simply too tired to. The hours passed, the sun rose as it did every other morning, and Anna sat, legs dangling off the side of her bed with deep bags under her eyes.

2

The day following the Messenger's visit seemed to crawl at an agonizing pace. Anna couldn't stop thinking about her dream. Not a dream. Whatever it was. And what was that about her mom? What did that... thing mean by saying she had been a bad girl? Anna didn't know all that much about her mother as she had died of cancer when Anna was too young to remember anything substantial, save for subconscious things like how she smelled (lilac), or the color of her eyes (chestnut brown). Her ambitions, her passions, everything her mother had been was now gone. Except, it would seem, the effects of some decision she made a long time ago. Maybe Anna’s dad would know something, she would ask him tonight after school.  
By the time she was let out of school, she had developed another headache from thinking about the events of last night and worrying about how to approach her father about her mother’s past. In the past, it was a topic which he steered clear of at all times.  
Anna observed her father as he finished preparing another unfortunate soul for his showing tomorrow morning, this one would be an open casket which meant her father had to spend an additional hour or two making sure the face looked as natural as possible. It was tedious work that takes immense concentration, but Anna’s thoughts were far from the chilly basement in which her father worked, the echoing words of the Messenger rattled around in her brain: “Your mom had been a bad girl…” What was it talking about?  
“Hey dad?”  
“Hm.” Craig grunts.  
“Tell me about mom.”  
Her father’s steadily working hands stopped, hovered for a moment, and slowly came to rest on the white satin sheet covering the corpse before him. He was silent for a moment before speaking in a dry and cracked voice.  
“Your-” He clears his throat. “Your mother? I told you about her last year. Listen, honey, there’s a lot more work to be done tonight and I just…” His excuses trailed away from her, she had heard them all before so there was no use in listening to them again. It was true that her father had talked openly about her mother, but what he had failed to mention was that he had only done so once and this one time also only lasted about a minute. The two of them had a similar conversation after Anna’s first day in first grade. It had been an exceptionally poor day in which three girls decided to dump a giant bottle of glue all over Anna’s hair and clothes. Crying, she asked her father to tell her about her mother, he was obviously uncomfortable talking about it but he consented to a short conversation. He told her that her mother had the most beautiful eyes and that her favorite flower was lilies. And just like that, the conversation was over. Whenever she felt overwhelmed her mother was often a beacon of hope for her, but this time it seemed that Anna’s vague memories of her mother’s form, her scent, and her laugh were not enough to comfort her anymore. She used to be able to rely on her dad for comfort, back before Anna lost her baby-face chubby cheeks, back then her dad always had time for her, the two of them.were inseparable, but that was before her chubby cheeks had slimmed out to “a spitting image of your mother” as her father often remarked. Ever since then, it was less jokes, less smiles, and less talking from her father. Still, Anna clung to these facts about her mother and often found herself drawing pictures of lilies when she was stressed.  
Craig knew this day would come and he had been putting it off for as long as he could, some things just hurt too much to bring up again, but he couldn’t let his little girl grow up never knowing about her mother, that’d be cruel. In truth, he wished that he could proclaim to the entire world how amazing his wife was, how she had saved him and how they had loved one another, but he wasn’t strong enough. Not strong enough back then and still not strong enough now. Telling just his daughter would have to suffice.  
Craig turned to face his daughter, “You’re right.”.  
Anna lifted her face, eyes wide in surprise, “Really?”  
“Yes. What would you like to know?”  
A smile broke across her face and her mind began to race, there were so many things that she had been dying to know about her mother. Did she ever sing? What did she do for a job? Could she cook? Why was she a bad girl? No. Not that one. Not first at least.  
“What was her favorite thing to do?” She asked.  
“Gardening. Your mom sure had a green thumb. I never had the patience for it but she was a natural, I remember the first time she grew watermelons. She waited weeks and weeks, the plant was perfectly healthy and green but nothing seemed to be growing on it, your mother was disheartened and swore that she must’ve done something wrong. So I finally go out and look at this plant that’s getting her all in a tizzy, I’d never seen such a healthy lookin’ plant before, I remember thinking how incredibly dense the leaves were, how could this possibly not be ripe with watermelons? Well I got closer and pushed the leaves aside. And I found the mother of all watermelons, it had to weigh at least fifty pounds, dead center surrounded in camouflage, waiting and growin’ fatter by the day. So I go inside and tell your mom. Needless to say, she was thrilled.” A smile broke on Craig’s face. “We ended up eating watermelon every night for three weeks. Gave some to the whole neighborhood too.”  
Anna smiled at the thought of her parents, their cheeks stuffed full of watermelon. “How did you meet?”  
“We grew up together. Her house was next to mine, we went to the same school so naturally we became friends.” He smiled, “She always had my heart. I don’t think she knew it until we were almost adults but it was always her.”  
They were both silent for a moment.  
“When did you know?” Anna asked.  
“Hm? Know what?”  
“That she was the one?”  
Craig sighed, “I guess I would have to say…” A smile broke across his lips, “We were maybe… ten years old, she was on the swingset and she was determined to fling herself halfway across the playground. Man I tell ya, she really got high on that thing, I remember thinking to myself, ‘She’s about to break her neck!’ and then she jumped. She flew. I don’t know if it’s ‘cuz it happened when I was a kid but it was like she had sprouted wings and just flew, but the wings didn’t stick around for very long. She landed flat on her face, I think she even got a scar from it,” He taps at his right temple, “For a second I thought she actually did break her neck, but she bounced right back to her feet, laughing her ass off through a bloody nose. I guess I knew for sure that I wanted to marry her after that.”  
Anna sat with a look of near-contentment in her eyes and Craig was just about to return to his work when Anna asked the question.  
“Did mom ever do anything bad?”  
Craig froze. “What did you say?”  
Anna slightly raised her voice, “Did mom ever do an-”  
“I’m done with this Anna.”  
“But..”  
“Go upstairs now!”.  
Anna didn’t move.  
“NOW!” He shouted, and Anna ran up the wooden staircase which creaked in protest and shut the door behind her. She heard a tremendous BANG! and the sound of many metal tools clanging onto the cement floor. Her heart was racing, her dad had never yelled at her like that before. Her eyes were starting to fill with tears. No! I don’t want to cry! The tears came anyway as she climbed the stairs toward her bedroom, she lay in bed and cried, thinking of lilies, watermelons, bloody noses, and one dangerous unanswered question. 

3  
In the weeks following her encounter with the Messenger, Anna was distant and lost in her own mind. She would not attempt to ask her father about her mother anymore, as he had truly scared her that night But perhaps even worse than that, he had also piqued her interest in the question. What could possibly have happened to make her usually level-headed (if not shit-headed) father act like that? And of course there was also the omnipresent thought looping over and over in the back of her mind; None of this is real, you’ve gone insane. You’re not supposed to listen to the voices. Fight them. No! She knows what she saw, despite all the evidence pointing directly at the looney-bin. Do not pass GO and do not collect $200 dollars. But Anna just couldn't allow herself to believe it, it had been so real. Of course it was real.  
Craig has since apologized for snapping on Anna like that, privately Craig had been so taken off guard by the question that he simply panicked. That was the one thing Anna could never, would never know. He wanted Anna to know that he loved spending time with her, but if he was working when she wanted to talk then she should pay attention and learn. “After all, this may all be yours someday.” he proclaimed.  
While not thrilled at the thought of doing this for the rest of her life, Anna agreed, hoping to learn more about her mother but also because her father was really her only friend. The two of them lived in an apartment directly above the mortuary. The morgue lay even further beneath that. She came downstairs with him once a week at first, then every three days, and then every other day, in a month it became every day. She was an extremely fast learner and found herself genuinely interested in the job so Craig took her on as an apprentice, not officially of course, she was still far too young but he would educate her alongside the public systems.  
Before long, Anna's mind filled with bodies, elementary school, and most of all; Death. Her mind often drifted before falling asleep, remembering that night with her reflection, wondering what they could possibly want from her, who “they” even are, if they are even real. She still wasn’t entirely sure that she was sane.  
A recurring dream of hers featured a great machine, gargantuan, rusted, and maniacal. Countless moving parts endlessly chugging away, cogs and pulleys, chains and wheels, platforms rising and falling, and upon closer inspection, flesh and blood incorporated into the entire system. The machine melds abruptly and offensively into an amalgam of human flesh and plates of rusted iron, jets of steam burst through thin packets of the skin stretched taut in an attempt to contain the machine for it is growing in size. Every time she dreamt of this machine, she was desperately trying to climb it. Her need to reach the top was always overwhelming and life-threatening, she leapt from platform to platform, steadily climbing, always moving but ultimately never making any progress. But she couldn't stop, dear God no! Below her, ascending at a similar (maybe faster) speed is a menacing and frigid entity, chasing her hungrily and shaking Anna to the core. She lurched forward, intending to sprint onward with renewed energy, only to be enveloped by the agonizing slowness of decisive movement in dreams. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end and goosebumps exploded across her body, the air was growing colder and colder but she just couldn’t run any faster! She didn't dare look behind her but she didn't have to, she felt a firm and numbing hand on her shoulder and she screamed.  
Just another nightmare, she thought and fell back into an uneasy and tumultuous sleep.  
Her insomnia eventually led to a few physical features which did not help her make any friends. She always had bags under her eyes, which are typically bloodshot, and worst of all, she isn't entirely sure that a lack of sleep can even do this, but sometimes great clumps of hair would fall off when she brushed her hair or even just ran her fingers through it. Her classmates, knowing that her father dealt with all the dead of their town, spread rumors that she had leprosy from being around corpses so often. The idea was ridiculous of course, but the children latched onto it and never let it go. She was almost always given a buffer of at least ten feet, if spacing would allow.  
One day, her teacher kept her after class in order to talk about not doing her homework. The final student filed out of the room and Mrs. Mueller stood and began pacing in front of Anna's desk.  
“Have a seat dear, this won't take long and then you can go to lunch too.” She motioned towards the little blue chair sitting in front of her desk. Anna did as she was told. “Now,” she scrunched up her face to make her best 'I'm disappointed in you' look, “we both know that you're not doing your homework. Can you tell me why?”  
Anna was silent, her eyes were glued to the floor.  
Mrs. Mueller waited a moment longer before continuing, “Well maybe I can call up your father and he can-”  
“No!” Anna shouted, “I'll do my homework, I'm sorry.” She sounded meek and defeated. To Mrs. Mueller she sounded… scared?  
“You said the same thing last week Anna, and you still didn't do it. How can I help make sure that you are doing the necessary work? I hope you know I’m not trying to be mean to you. It’s important that you do your homework so you can learn!”  
Anna's eyes welled with tears but she didn't respond, her gaze was still on the floor.  
“Anna.”  
No response.  
Mrs. Mueller sighed. “Anna, please, this is not difficult work, I've seen you do better than this and I am holding you to that standard.”  
Silence.  
“Do you understand me Anna? I need some sort of recognition.”  
Tears brimmed in Anna's downturned eyes, but she still said nothing.  
“Do. You. Understand?” Mrs. Mueller barked in frustration, just a touch too harsh.  
Anna began to cry, “Y-es Ma-am.” her sobs broke apart her words. She was crying, but not over homework, the potential of suspension, or even disappointing her father. She is so lonely. How could she possibly focus on homework right now? She knows she can get better if she just has someone to be her friend, but nobody ever talked to her. Her tear-streaked eyes glanced upwards into Mrs. Mueller's, reaching out for comfort of any kind, but she found none there, only stolid neutrality towards her situation. For a second, she thought she could see another emotion buried deep in her eyes. Yes, there it was: revulsion. The same look that all of the other children gave her. At this moment, Anna understood that she would always be alone in this world, and she sobbed even harder. She threw herself out of the seat and ran out the door.  
“Anna! Come back!” Mrs. Mueller shouted after her, but to no effect. She glanced down at the seat Anna was just in and saw a clump of knotted, black hair stuck to the back of the seat. She shuddered. Something was just not right with that girl. Of course she had heard all the rumors from the children, but she obviously didn't pay them any mind, but... Something was off with her, she just couldn’t put her finger on it.

4  
At age twelve, Anna began her first year of middle school, still as lonely as ever. Vague thoughts of suicide lingered in her subconscious like a tumultuous storm cloud, somewhat inviting in its finality. The first time she actively thought about suicide was immediately after her encounter with Mrs. Mueller, which was the first time she truly realized the scope of her isolation. Sure, she had her father, but he preferred his drinks whenever he wasn’t working, and when he was working, he was teaching her which did not resemble familial bonding in any way. He preferred to watch whatever game was on by himself just so that he had an excuse to leave his depressing job, his depressing home, and most of all his depressing daughter behind for a while.  
The librarian woman many years ago turned out to be the first of many souls that came knocking on Anna’s door, none of them carried the oppressive and heavy weight of a Messenger though, these encounters were straightforward and to the point: the restless souls often needed comfort and confession in their deaths. Anna was always happy to listen, happy to relish in conversation even if it was relatively bizarre and one-sided.  
She once met a young man who had developed a life-threatening illness that had incapacitated him and bound him to the hospital for three years of his brief life. A young nurse befriended the boy upon his admittance, after she learned that he came from a long line of skilled investors with plenty of money, hundreds of thousands of which were sitting dormant in the boy's soon to be worthless bank account. And so, the vixen spent the next three years seducing the boy, convincing him of her passions. Roughly a week before his demise, the doctors informed the boy that his illness had advanced and that things were looking bleak. The nurse suggested he write a last will and testament, and who else would he leave his fortunes to other than the nurse whom he had fallen for? A mere two days before the deadline his doctor had given him, the boy began making a miraculous turn for the better. His vitals improved tremendously and he no longer struggled sleeping through the night. In spite of himself, he began to think he might actually be on the mend; unfortunately, his nurse had different plans. She began lowering his crucial dosages slowly over time, the doctor received his blood-work and was unsure how the sickness could have returned with such ferocity. The doctor would up his dosages while the nurse fed him less and less medicine, until one day: she gave him the full prescribed dose. The doctor had upped the dosage so high from seeing little to no results that the massive surge of chemicals flooded his bloodstream and stopped his heart dead in its tracks.  
They all disappeared soon after telling their stories. Anna felt little to no sympathy as she listened to a handful of tragic tales often featuring betrayal, lust, and almost always wrath. If anything, these encounters were enlightening. The past four years had been a balancing act between school, sanity, and her father's work which had slowly become her work too. She spent most hours of her day locked in her room, contemplating the hand that she had been dealt. She wasn’t sure if it was her imagination being extraordinarily active, but her ghostly visitors seemed to be appearing more frequently. She also found herself seeing things moving out of the corner of her eye, nothing real just shadows darting out of view, she usually chalked it up to the harsh fluorescent lights in the morgue.  
Seventh grade provided no greater social challenges than those she was already used to facing on a daily basis, what seventh grade did bring however, was her: Sarah Brewer. She was perfect in every way; golden shimmering hair that fell in waves the rippled like wind on a wheat field, her eyes and face were fair and intriguingly unspectacular. Perhaps it was the juxtaposition of such flawless hair to such a common face which lended her natural appeal. In the end, what drew Anna to her the most, was her porcelain, powdery-soft skin. She daydreamt about gently caressing her face or even an arm, anything to feel its perfection under her own scrutinizing fingers but she knew no one would ever let her touch them.  
Anna assumed she was in love.  
It's different for everybody.

5  
That night, another messenger came to her as she was in the depths of sleep, that innocuous realm in which imagination roams free and anything is possible. She envisioned a room. It was simple, four walls, a floor, and a well lit ceiling all of which were immaculate, white, and shimmering in the way that only satin can. Her chest compressed with the heavy weight of anxiety while turning about the room, looking for the way out, what she saw instead was a man. At least, it was the shape of a man, its actual details were hard to make out, as if he were somehow out of focus. Or maybe he was simply beyond the ability of the human mind to comprehend...  
Crack! The fissure in her sanity split even further, branching off in two fresh and unforgiving channels.  
Once again, she was not afraid, if anything she was eager to search for answers to questions half a decade old, but before she was able to speak, the messenger’s voice boomed in her mind:  
'YOU HAVE MET THE OTHER HALF.' the voice spoke with an impossible enormity.  
'The- the what?' Anna stammered back, surprised.  
'YOUR CALLING. THE OTHER HALF..' He said, expectantly and incredulously, as if speaking to a particularly slow child.  
Anna's subconscious still clung to the image of Sarah as Anna had seen her today; her checkered scarf whipping behind her, her immaculate hair blowing in the wind, and the sun arcing off her exposed and porcelain skin, so white, so soft...  
'YESSSS' it crooned, latching onto the image and splaying it across each silken wall as though the memory were being shown through a projector.  
'S-Sarah? What about her?' she murmured quietly, cautiously.  
'YOU CAN FEEL IT NO? THE PULL! THE INSATIABLE NEED?!' He raised his voice even more, an intense headache split the center of Anna's forehead. The shape of the man stepped closer to her.  
'FOLLOW HER. STUDY HER..' it ordered her, it pauses and a grin with far too many teeth spread across its featureless face. ‘BECOME HER.'  
'What- wait, why- why her? What do you mean? I don't understand!' she shouted in frustration, 'You haven't told me anything! NONE of you have told me anything, please I'm begging you! What does my mom or-or Sarah have to do with any of this?!”  
It flinched, as if her sudden shouting had surprised it. its shape began to leak and warp and bend grotesquely free of the outline of the man. Its skin stretched in sudden bursts as if something just below its skin was trying desperately to break free. A cry of intense pain emanated from the thing that used to be a man and now she could hear bones snapping and grating against one another, breaking, reforming, becoming something new, something horrible. She turned around towards the door (was there a door?) and pushed it open.  
The door swung open easily, almost launching Anna off the sheer drop that lay beyond. It was almost too dark to see but she could barely make out a platform about six feet away, she only hoped there was something to grab onto when she jumped. She didn’t want to jump, but what other options were there? Two heavy thuds reverberated up Anna's legs telling her that the monster behind her had finished with its metamorphosis and was coming her way. Anna took a couple steps backward, ran forward, and launched herself from the doorway, her arms outstretched and desperate to find purchase. Her hands found solid ground as the rest of her body caught up and slammed into something metal which reverberated like a gong. She pulled herself up and over the ledge, her head was pounding and the front of her body was still ringing from the collision, she looked back through the doorway and to her horror, sees the monstrous amalgam of flesh and bone from her nightmares shambling towards the door. One of its monstrous legs slipped through the door and dangled above the seemingly infinite blackness surrounding them. The thing released a guttural roar of frustration that echoed above and below them. Anna was frozen in terror as the two stared at one another for what felt like an eternity, the echo had just faded completely when Anna heard, CHUNK! Somewhere far, far below her. A blinding fluorescent light had appeared miles below, CHUNK! Another light higher up. CHUNK! CHUNK! CHUNK! CHUNK! The lights accelerated towards the two of them, illuminating the structure and obliterating the blackness which surrounded Anna. With a chilling turn in her stomach Anna realized that she was standing on the machine which haunted her dreams so regularly. The endless and gruesome monolith with its operatic symphony of machines which were now slowly whirring to life. Dread flooded her veins and turned her blood to ice, behind her, the cry from what used to be the second messenger morphed into a roar. ‘Wait, but if I’m here… I’m dreaming! I have to wake up!’ She balled up her fists and slammed them against the side of her head, “Wake up!” She screamed, “Wake up!” The amalgam’s body began to contort once more, growing longer and thinner, stretching it’s way across the gap. “Wake up!” Anna closed her eyes in concentration, the monstrosity was closing in, “WAKE UP!”  
It had grabbed her and began to throttle her back and forth, “Anna! Anna wake up!” It said to her. Then she was in her room once more, her father was bent over her, shaking her awake. “Jee-zus Anna, that must’ve been some bad dream, I heard you from the morgue. Are you okay?”  
She nodded as the flood of adrenaline slowed and she realized that there was no monster, there was no monolithic machine, and that it was merely her father shaking her awake.  
Craig’s face twisted with concern, “Are you sure you’re okay? You’re so pale…”  
“I’m fine.” She muttered.  
He nodded turning towards the door, “Okay. I’m right down the hall if you need anything.”  
“I know dad.”  
He closed the door behind him and Anna sat up. A sudden flare of pain rose from her ribcage. If the monster wasn’t real and the machine wasn’t real, then why did she still hurt from jumping across the gap? She lifted her shirt and saw a darkening bruise beginning to form. But that’s impossible! Dreams aren’t real, when you fall off a cliff in a dream you don’t wake up as a human pancake. How could this happen? Unless… No. Not unless the monster and the machine are real. But how could that be?!

6

Anna was furious, but her anger quelled over time and she eventually did as she was told: she studied Sarah. Anna watched her eat lunch every school day up until graduation, sometimes she would have a notebook in front of her recording what she eats, a stenographer to the days when Sarah prefers the pizza to the cheeseburger, recording the way she laughed and talked and interacted with the posse of friends always surrounding her. Anna brooded in silence, watching the girl who is everything she had ever wanted to be, confident that her judgmental eyes pass right over Anna, somehow not sensing the passion Anna sent toward her, such envious passion.

After graduation, Sarah was accepted into State university, Anna received a scholarship into State's rival school Purdue, but she declined the full-ride in order to follow her quarry to college.  
The day she left for college Anna was positive that her father would drink himself to death within a couple of years now that nobody would be home to limit his nightly consumption.  
Anna was unable to get into the same boarding house as Sarah, but she knew where she lived and the six quickest routes to her building, all varying in levels of exposure to the public. She followed and stalked all of Sarah's social media accounts waiting for the next update on her location. Sitting on her dorm couch, she scrolled past a picture of Sarah with her arms draped over the shoulders of some jock and Anna's jealousy blossomed. A notification on her phone dinged: “Sarah Brewer has checked in @ The Human Bean Cafe, “Best coffee in the STATE, I swear.” Anna stood up and grabbed her backpack from off the table. It was mostly empty, the only things in it were her "Sarah journal", some loose pens, and half a pack of gum.  
Anna slung the backpack over her shoulder and went into the bathroom, standing in front of the mirror and looking into her own baggy eyes, so dark brown they might as well be black, she mussed her hair up until it fell in a semi-attractive way, she looked down at her hands and saw clumps of her black hair entwined between her fingers. She cleaned off her hands, looked into the mirror again, and began smiling. Her mouth formed a shape closer to a grimace than a friendly smile, so she relaxed her face and tried again, no, this one was too much of a smirk, too pompous, too knowing. She relaxed her face once more. It was another twenty minutes of practicing before she had a grin she was somewhat content with. She walked out of her dorm and began her walk (stalk) to The Human Bean.

Sarah sipped her large, triple-shot, low foam, soy cappuccino and stared at the blinking cursor on her now empty essay document which just happened to be due next week. The prompt was simple enough: “If you were able to have a thirty-minute conversation with anyone, living or dead, who would it be and why?” She was supposed to write three thousand words on the topic, but truth be told: she doesn't have any idea who to choose. She could take the easy path and write about Abraham Lincoln, or Steve Jobs or something, but she wanted to stand out to her teacher and make a better impression than that. She knew that Bachman doesn't currently hold her in his highest regards after missing his first class due to a failed alarm, she imagines he sees her as most everybody else does: an airhead. Always the popular girl, the girl with “the hair”, always seeming to get what she wants, but in reality, she was incredibly self-conscious, and never accepted hand-outs from anyone. She was a proud woman and she liked to think that she could be strong when necessary, even despite her privileged upbringing.  
The door to the cafe opened accompanied by a ringing bell. The barista called a greeting across the nearly empty lobby and continued wiping down the counter.  
The bell pulled Sarah from the wanderings of her mind. 'Oh, right, who am I gonna choose for this stupid essay...'  
She sighed, and opened Facebook on another tab. She knew she was procrastinating, but she really was at a loss, maybe if she relaxes a little it would help? She knows it won't.  
A message dinged into existence at the bottom of the screen.  
“Shouldn't you be writing an essay? ;)” It was Mike, they had been dating for six months now after he had finally got the courage to ask her out. All throughout high school they had flirted and flirted, she always waited for him to make the first move, but he didn't until they had almost graduated. She felt robbed of the American high school dream of dating the star football player, but she was happy they are together now.  
“Very funny,” she replied, “I don't know who to pick...”  
“Just do Abraham Lincoln or some shit.”  
Sarah rolled her eyes, peered over her laptop, and surveyed the room.  
It was a typical, modern cafe, chalk boards for menus and announcement boards, low-hanging lights that cast a warm and orange light, an attempt at a rustic, almost cabin feel, and of course the hottest new music that you've probably never heard of. A lone barista sat behind the counter on his phone, a couple sat on a couch by the front door and chatted away obnoxiously, two other men, both probably in their thirties, were on their computers, one of them staring blankly at the screen and the other typing furiously. There was also a newcomer she hadn't noticed before: a young woman, hair black as a raven, eyes sunken and dark but, frankly, mesmerizing. Sarah thought the woman had to be about her age. She had a notebook in front of her and was scribbling something almost as fast Mr. Speedy Fingers was typing over there. The new girl's eyes looked up and make contact with hers for a couple seconds before they both broke the gaze and turned away.  
'Do I know her?'

'Shit! She saw me, oh shit she knows, oh shit...' Anna snapped her notebook shut and turned to put it away, but she hesitated. It would be peculiar if she ran out the door after merely making eye contact with her. After all, Anna is fairly certain this is the first time in her four years of studying Sarah that she had even acknowledged her existence. Anna's ears flushed a bright red, her heart pounds against her chest as she deliberately opened the notebook once more. In it, she writes: “Eye contact, Human Bean, 10/10/2015” Her notes are always concise, she believed that every inch of paper should be put to use, and as such only the critical information is written. It is for this reason that she is surprised to discover that she had embellished the entry with a heart, simple, childish, and glaring.

Of course! How could she have forgotten? That was Anna Caplan, the illusive, quiet girl with the hair problem. She remembered Jacqueline Ritchie telling her a story about Anna at the lunch table once; She said she had left her class for a bathroom break, and as she went to push the door open, Anna Caplan had flung it open so fast that she nearly screamed. “I almost didn't make it to the toilet guys, I almost pissed myself!” She giggled and continued. Caplan almost plowed her over before realizing that Jacqueline was even there. “Oh,” she squeaked almost inaudibly before muttering, “I'm sorry.” and nearly ran away. By the time Caplan had rounded the corner, Jacqueline had chalked it up to her being just a little odd, that's all. She entered the bathroom. Her first thought was that the girl from 'The Grudge' had decided to shampoo her hair in the sink today, but she quickly realized that the drain was clogged with black hair, and the multitudes of hair strewn about the counter was actually from little Annie Caplan. “It was so gross, like I had to walk downstairs to use the bathroom because I felt like I was gonna barf.”  
It seemed that Anna couldn't be in a story without somebody eventually bringing up the myth that had stalked her life in public school, Alice Little chimed in; “Well you know her dad is the town mortician, that whole family probably has some weirdo disease or something, isn't that how her mom died?” The girls around the table laughed, Jacqueline Ritchie especially, but Sarah didn't. She only felt pity for the girl because she knew how it felt to lose a parent, and for people to make fun of it was awful. Sarah avoided Jacqueline for the rest of the year.  
She had expected some of her graduating class to follow her up to State, and a handful did, but no one Sarah was close to. Frankly speaking, her old clique of friends were too stupid for college but she missed their company nonetheless. She opened Facebook once more and messaged Mike.  
“You'll never guess who's at the Bean with me!!”  
“Abraham Lincoln?!”  
“Hardy har, no, Anna Caplan, do you remember her?”  
“Hard to forget a high schooler with leprosy.”  
“Oh come on, that's just mean.”  
“Still true tho.”  
She closed the messenger, wondering why she ever expected Mike to not be a tool. Seeing Anna Caplan, reminds her of all the times she had seen Anna sitting alone, sometimes with a book but always alone. Sarah's own new found loneliness intensified. 'Empathy plus loneliness apparently equals desperation.' she thought, as she closed her laptop and made her way over to Anna's table.

Anna finally broke her gaze free of the heart, only to look up and see Sarah halfway across the room and headed directly for her. 'Code red! Abandon ship! Run!' Anna's legs however had turned to jelly so it seemed as though that wouldn't be an option.  
Sarah's face illuminated with a smile, perfected through actual use rather than practice Anna noted , as she approached the table.  
“It's... Anna right? Anna Caplan? We went to high school together, I'm... not sure if you remember me.” Sarah said.  
Anna's eyes were wide and nearly bulging out of her skull, or so it felt, her lips were pressed into a thin line, “Sarah Brewer.” she whispered and slowly closed her notebook.  
“That's right! Can I?” She gestured towards the chair opposite the table from Anna.  
Anna nodded rigidly.  
“Thanks,” she took her seat, “so, are you at State?”  
Anna nodded once more.  
“What dorm? Maybe we're neighbors.” She said, once more gracing Anna with her perfect smile.  
“We're not.” Anna said a little too quickly.  
“Oh? How do you know?”  
Anna's eyes dart around the room, looking for the closest exit. 'She knows, oh god, she really does know after all.'  
“Relax,” Sarah laughed cautiously, “I'm just kidding, really. I'm in Wynn Hall, if you know where that is...”  
Anna told her she did.  
“You should stop by sometime if you wanna... We can watch a movie if you'd like.”  
Anna was silent, trying to process this new turn of events. Just this morning Sarah Brewer hadn't so much as looked at her, but now Anna was invited to visit her dorm. Anna suddenly felt nauseous.  
“Or... something else?” Sarah said with another laugh.  
Anna's eyes searched Sarah's face mistrustfully. This has to be a joke, right? Somebody set her up to this. Another somebody wants to make Anna Caplan the butt of the joke again, even now in college. This was all too good to be true.  
Sarah sighed, “Okay. Listen, I know people weren't very nice to you in high school...” she began awkwardly, “but I guess I never really understood why. I'm as keen as the next person to leave high school in the dust, so why don't you just swing by sometime, okay? No need to make it weird, just two people hangin' out yeah?” Another smile.  
“Uh. Okay, yeah.” Anna replied meekly.  
“Great! Wynn Hall, 237, see ya sometime soon.” She winked at her, stood up, and walked toward the door.  
Anna was light-headed, she was swaying in her seat and her heart was supercharged. This was easily the most exciting day of her life, none of her conversations with the dead had ever filled her with this level of happiness before. She was finally making a friend and it was Sarah freaking Brewer of all people!  
Anna watched Sarah disappear through the front door, opened her notebook once more, and outlined the heart three times.

7  
Unbeknownst to Sarah, Anna made many excursions to Wynn Hall after their encounter at the Human Bean. Anna had always known that Sarah lived in Wynn Hall, but thanks to her unexpected invitation, she now knew which window. (Second floor, sixth from the left.) Being on the second floor, visibility was limited unless she climbed the small hill opposite the street from Wynn, where a decent sized oak stood paramount. On one occasion she had clambered onto the lowest branch, which was sturdy enough to hold her admittedly feeble ninety pounds, only to realize that height was not the issue, at this distance, all she could make out were silhouettes and shapes of bodies milling about in the dorm rooms.  
Each night, around eight, that jock from Sarah's Facebook page would come to the front door and wait impatiently to be buzzed in. He would usually tap his foot for a minute or two before the Hall director got around to letting him in, it usually took about eighty seconds before Sarah opened her door to let the neanderthal in. The majority of their nights together were spent on the bed, books laid out in front of them, the occasional silent laugh springing up from either of them. Each night ended the same way; the hulking boy edged closer and closer to Anna's love, his hands began to move up her legs and soon enough they are kissing and then Anna had to turn away and leave her perch before she did something she would regret.  
Three days after speaking to the love of her life for the first time, Anna took her usual walk to Wynn Hall, it was a crisp mid-October evening, almost silent save for the brief Whoosh of a passing car and the brittle leaves dancing and scraping across the pavement. Anna was deep in thought; it seemed today her mind was plagued by the memory of the first night she had probed into the realm of the dead, the night she had spoken to the Messenger of Death.  
A sudden gale of laughter penetrated Anna's bubble of ambient silence, but it wasn't just any laugh, it was the laugh that echoed through her head every time she tried to sleep; Sarah and Mike walked around the corner of State's library, arms interlocked and both of their heads thrown back in laughter. For a brief moment, perhaps for only a second, Anna's love for Sarah was drowned out almost completely by a rising crimson tide of hatred for her happiness. Anna ducked behind an electrical box before either of them took notice of her.  
“Oh come on! She's really not that bad, I promise.”  
“You know, I'm pretty sure there was someone who said that exact same thing about Jeffrey fuckin' Dahmer.”  
Their voices slowly drifted nearer, Anna estimated maybe twenty feet between them and the electrical box. Anna heard the soft Thump of Sarah punching Mike's arm.  
“He-hey!” Mike says, “Cut it out, all I'm saying is that she's frickin' weird okay? And the-the-the hair thing, what in the hell is up with that?”  
“I don't know, but that's obviously not in her control. Is that why you're dating me? Your measure of someone's character is summed up by the quality of their hair? I gotta admit: that's pretty shallow even for you.” Sarah said.  
Anna was shuffling on her hands and knees, keeping the electrical box between herself and the sound of their voices. Anna's heart warmed at hearing Sarah defend her.  
“It's not just the hair, I couldn't tell you what it was even if you put a gun to my head. It's like some primal instinct just screams 'Get away!' when I see her.”  
Sarah scoffed. Mike continued:  
“There's no nice way to put this, I'm sorry, there is something off about her. I'd keep your distance if I were you.”  
Their footsteps stopped.  
“Who I spend my time with is none of your business Mike. You're being childish and judgmental.”  
Mike stammered. “I just... I don't get why you suddenly want to hang out with someone else.”  
Their footsteps began again.  
“Believe it or not, I'd like to spend time with someone who isn't trying to get inside me all night.”  
Mike began an undoubtedly sophisticated rebuttal, but their voices were growing distant by now and Anna could no longer make out what they were saying.  
Mike's words rattled around in her head as she slumped against the electrical box, watching them continue along the campus' looping path. Anna was exhausted, stalking doesn't exactly have the best sleep schedule in the first place and she felt herself drifting slowly towards a kind of half-sleep. For whatever reason, her mind would not give up on remembering that night, the night she met Not Mom.

Two years after she discovered her “gift” of contact with the dead, Anna had finally gathered the courage to attempt communication with her late mother.  
The idea was ever-present, but she always lacked the gumption to actually try. For starters; she didn't even know how any of this worked! Could she even transmit the communication or was she merely a receiver of some kind? Was there a specific window of time where communication was available, and would her mother still be in that time frame if it did exist? How would she make certain what she latched onto was actually her mother? She didn't know. She was only nine years old at this point and she was used to not knowing things, but these things were too frightening to remain unknown forever, these things were not apt to be taught to her. No one else would believe her, and even if she could prove it, she was sure she'd be dissected and examined by some evil doctors like in the late night shows daddy used to watch. Her isolation was total, and she missed her mom. She was only five when the cancer had taken her mother from her, and the memories were hazy but they were happy. In fact, they were the only truly happy times that she could remember and she ached to feel them again.  
Sleep eluded her that night after hearing the drunken sobs of her father broken intermittently by cries of; “Lana!” and concluding with wretched, gurgling sobs. She lay on her back in silence, staring at the ceiling, enveloped in nostalgia from picturing her mother's impossibly round chestnut eyes. She began to cry. She hadn't noticed that she was crying until the initial tear slid into her right ear. So stupid! Why didn't she just do it already, wasn't she “special”? Whatever that means. She could talk to the dead for Christ's sake, she knew she had done it before!  
For nearly two years however, she was convinced that she had hallucinated the whole thing, the image of the man bound in a straight jacket, his head lolling side to side and his filthy tongue bouncing to and fro, was burned into the inside of her eyelids. Every time she closed her eyes to sleep: “Crazy! You're bonkers!” The voice was incessant. She never felt crazy though, do crazy people think they're crazy? Anna supposed on some level, they had to have known, right? Yet she remained lucid, she had control over everything, except the voice of course. The defense she most often returned to was along the lines of: “I can't be crazy, I've had no lapses of control.” Yes, her definition of “crazy” was shaky, but so was any nine year old's definition of nearly anything. To the best of her knowledge, she had never frothed at the mouth, and she was certain she would have noticed if her eyes starting doing loop-de-loops in their sockets. No way was she crazy, no way José! However, she found no comfort in this revelation; if she wasn't insane after all, then she had really been contacted from beyond the grave and had been chosen to fulfill some unknown purpose. Anna tried imagining anything less comfortable than that but couldn't come up with anything apart from toilet paper made out of cactus.  
She decided that two years of being immobilized by fear was enough. Tears still streaked into her ears like invisible warpaint as she resolved to reach into the realm of the dead.  
She closed her eyes and once more conjured the image of her mother's soothing chestnut eyes with her own, singular mind's eye. She propelled herself towards Lana's left eye and was swallowed by the pupil, her mind's ear was deafened by countless wet and echoing screams, distant, and rebounding towards her from all directions. 'Sounds like an indoor pool.' she thought incoherently. Before her she saw only blackness, impossibly rich and thick as mud. When she looked down, she could faintly make out amorphous structures rolling by miles beneath her, with no other point of reference, she decided to move downwards, towards them. The structures were rushing upward towards her, the screams amplified, and Anna saw the blackness begin to split off in branches of midnight towards the summit of each of the countless structures. Anna's grip on this other world faltered dramatically once she was close enough to recognize the structures for what they really were. A thousand feet below her lay millions of the monoliths from her dreams and suddenly the relentless, echoing screams made sense. Hadn't she screamed herself awake in the very same way? She imagined the skeletal beast constantly lumbering and clunking behind her during her dreams and wondered if it chased everyone. A single phrase shot through her mind, her grip on the world once again flickered, and far away, back in her bed, she shivered. It's different for everybody.  
Anna regained her control, remembering that her mother was down there being terrorized by some thing, probably an unspeakable monster of sorts, if there was any chance of saving her, Anna would take it. She reestablished the image of her mother's eyes and used it as a compass, rocketing past the monoliths and the dark pollution emanating from them. Instinct drove her downwards and suddenly the screams were overtaken by the gargantuan WHOOSH! of each passing monstrous machine. The world stopped with a stomach turning abruptness as she arrived at her mother's afterlife.(Or was it her damnation?) The screams were distant now, Anna could only hear intermittent bursts of steam, the roar of moving machinery, and an omnipresent rattling of chains. She began to circle the structure in ascent, she was positive she could hear the struggles of her mother or even the roar of her mother's beast, if it did roar that was, but she heard and saw nothing on the upper half. She looked downwards into the abyss the monolith sprouted from and hesitated. A woman's scream rose from the darkness and Anna plunged toward it, “I'm comin' Mama!” she screamed through her mind.  
She only heard the one scream as she raced past the seemingly never-ending formation, when she reached as far as she dared to go. The tips of her toes were floating centimeters above a great black sea which spread out in all directions as far as the eye could see. The towers, now distant and menacing, sprung from the vast black sea like redwoods rising from a nightmare swamp. Something moved below the water and she screamed, shooting up a level. The woman huddling between a wall and an offshoot of pipes whipped her head towards her, eyes wide, her frizzy black hair swinging wildly.  
“Mom!” Anna shrieked and her eyes filled with tears. She flung herself onto the same level as her mother and extended a hand to the cowering woman. “Mom, it's me!”  
“A-Anna?” A tentative hand rose to cover her stern lips, now gaping in wonder and unexpected exuberance. “I don't understand, how are you... here? I'm... I'm dead aren't I?”  
Anna nodded, “Yes mama.” She paused, looking for an explanation, but all she could come up with was: “I'm special mama.” and it seemed sufficient. Her mother simply nodded as if Anna had explained everything.  
Lana stared disbelievingly at her daughter, in fact, she stared right through her! The floating child before her claiming to be her daughter was transparent, she could make out the neighboring tower through Anna's pre-pubescent abdomen. Could it really be? Her baby girl, here, in this God-forsaken shit hole? It had been years, of that she was sure, but she had no idea how many. The passage of time in Hell, for surely this must be Hell, seemed nonexistent or at the very least slow as molasses.  
“How long Anna?”  
Anna stared at the stranger in front of her and muttered, “Four years mama.”  
Lana's gaze fell to the rusty and grated metal she sat on and began to cry.  
“I don't understand.” She managed through her heaving sobs.  
Anna gently floated towards her mother, her feet gracefully landing on the metal, she walked to where her mother was and sat down beside her. She gave an exuberant sigh and began telling her story; she started with the librarian woman and the young man who had his life stolen by the conniving vixen, she was careful to skip over any details concerning Sarah, her beauty, or her impossibly perfect hair. Her mother sat with her hands in her lap, patient yet paranoid, each Clank! or Clang! that rose above the clamor of the machinery caused her a glance over the shoulder, around the corner of the pipes which now housed the duo. When Anna's story had concluded with her description of her journey into the realm of the dead, Lana nodded repeatedly.  
“That's why I can see through you, because you're not actually here, you're not dead, thank God.”  
Anna looked down at her hands splayed before her. See through? Her hands looked solid enough to her.  
“That also means I won't be able to come with you, there's no way out of here once you're dead.” A series of rhythmic bangs echoed up from the level below them. “Anna, honey, I need you to leave, right now.” Lana stood and peeked around the side of the pipe-wall.  
“Why mommy? I just found-”  
“I know you did! I know, but we're not alone here.” The banging continued in its rhythmic manner, growing minutely louder with each consecutive bang.  
“Wha-” Anna began, but her mother cut her off.  
“There's something that you really don't need to see, please, please, go..”  
Bang. Bang. Bang! BANG!  
From her piped refuge, Lana spotted a shambling shape rising across the rusted plane as if it were climbing a great set of stairs, in it's hand; a long and slender shape was swung against the floor. BANG! Lana reeled behind the pipes once more and looked her daughter in the eye, “It's here, this isn't negotiable, you have to go!”  
Anna found herself distracted by relishing the motherly tone she so rarely heard directed at herself and didn't move. BANG!  
Lana scowled in frustration. The image of her daughter floating off the side of the monolith splayed across her mind's eye and she pushed her daughter with all her might. Initially, her hands were enveloped up to the wrists in the chest of her child as if she had pushed into smoke, a second later, Anna's body reacted to the shove. She yelped in surprise and fear as she tumbled backwards off the grated floor and tumbled into nothingness, except she didn't tumble, she remained upright and simply floated aside her mother's personal Hell. She felt betrayed to a certain extent, but that was soon overwhelmed by the questions regarding the shambling being making its way towards her late mother. It was still engulfed in shadow making its details unintelligible, but it was human in shape and she could tell that it was bald, aside from that, she had no idea what she was looking at.  
Anna's mother stepped out from behind the pipes, “Come on then you bitch! You've chased me for four years now, this has to end somehow!”  
The figure emerged from the shadow and Anna screamed as it wore the face of her mother. It hardly even resembled her anymore. Its scalp, bald save for a couple strands of frizzy and black hair, was blistered and misshapen with many tumorous mounds. It's skin was sick with jaundice and pulled taught against Lana's cancer-stricken skeleton, creating a see-through quality that made Anna nauseous. Its right eye bulged grotesquely from the socket, bloodshot and yellowing. Necrosis, four years worth if Anna had to guess, had begun eating away at the tip of its nose, now providing a triangular window to the inside of its skull. Its arms and legs were that of a skeleton and she was surprised the beast was able to even lift the iron pipe that it brandished and beat ominously against the machinery. The bulging right eye sat motionless, but the left eye, blood red from a burst vessel, locked mercilessly on Lana Caplan.  
“Mama! Run!” Anna shouted at Lana.  
The thing's gaze darted to the floating child and it gave a low hiss of distaste.  
“Leave her out of this! She's still alive, you can't do shit with her. I'm all you've got.” Lana stepped away from the wall of pipes and closer to the edge of the structure, arms spread wide like Christ on the cross.  
Anna panicked and began to cry. She tried flying down to her mother so she could swoop her away to safety from the thing that was not her mother, but she was unable to move, she was paralyzed and forced to spectate as Not Mom drew closer and closer to Mom.  
BANG!  
Lana screamed in unadulterated rage, Not Mom bellowed sharply in return as a centipede crawled across the hole in the center of its face. It gave one final BANG! before dropping the pipe, sprinting forward, and tackling Lana off the side of the monolith.  
Anna screamed as she watched her mother tumble into the obsidian sea below, interlocked with the cancerous grotesque.  
Anna readied herself to plunge into the vast blackness below her, when she felt an intense tugging on her back, as if some maniacal force had read her mind and decided that her mother was to be lost forever.  
She was reminded of her middle school fair. There had been an inflatable track where an attendant outfitted her in a painfully snug harness which was attached to the back of the track with a thick bungee cord. Two tracks lay side by side and a contestant from each lane would see who could get farthest before being ripped backwards by the bungee cord, tumbling along the inflatable ground like a plastic bag in the wind.  
Now, she felt that same bungee cord sensation as she was ripped upwards, away from her mother’s machine, upwards through the billowing midnight smoke, the surrounding machines seeming to slide closer to one another as her perspective changed. As the monoliths were swallowed by the surrounding darkness, her backward progress through the realm of the dead was marked only by the sinking sensation of rapid and involuntary movement in her stomach. Suddenly, she was spat out from her mother’s eye which was now the glossy, steel gray of a corpse.  
Anna bolted upright in her bed, her hands raced across her body; arms, legs, chest, head, all still there. She had returned from the other world and she began to cry. Anna did not sleep for the rest of the night.

When Anna finished recounting the night she had spoken to her mother post-mortem, she was still sitting at the base of the electrical box, the sun had set, the wind began to howl, and mosquitoes were flocking to her exposed thighs. She stood, her legs were stiff and sore after being still for what must have been a good two hours, maybe more. She gave the backs of her knees a gentle rub and began limping her way back home. There was no sign of Sarah or Mike, a handful of other students meandered around the campus, all of them giving her a wide berth, but she saw nobody that she should give two shits about. The air was sharp and brisk, it told her that October was nearly at an end and somewhere deep in her mind a voice chanted:  
Halloween, Hallow’s Eve, Halloween, Hallow’s Eve.


End file.
